belgianwaffle

To Dust You Shall Return


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins

We went down to Cork on Saturday to bury my aunt’s ashes. It was a much deferred event and in the end this weekend didn’t really suit because a) Mr. Waffle and I had a party on Friday night; b) Daniel was staying out at a friend’s house to do a Friday 13th horror marathon and had to be picked up from there on the way to Cork and was up until 5 am being jump scared; c) my sister was enjoying a rolling crisis at work and ongoing illness and d) she and her partner were moving out of their house the following Monday to make room for the builders who are moving in until Christmas.

At the party on Friday , an old friend of mine from Cork asked me how Aunty Pat was and I had to say, not great, we’re interring her ashes tomorrow. I felt a bit sorry for him but there you are.

Anyway, we got to Cork, we got to the graveyard and we did it. It was a short ceremony and it’s pretty surprising to see how small the box of ashes is. The gravedigger knew Aunty Pat and had done some gardening work for her in the past, so that was actually quite nice.

We went for lunch afterwards which was not entirely successful because it was vegetarian which not everyone loved, Daniel was exhausted, my sister was sick and it was so loud that it was difficult to hear anything. Alas. Before we went to the graveyard, my sister had sustained us with a snack including a Cornish pasty from Marks and Spencer’s. “Look Mum,” said Daniel excitedly, “an English empanada.” Good point.

At lunch we were trying to tell Aunty Pat stories over the din. My brother said – which was news to me – that she loved rugby and when he was a kid, he used to go into her house to watch matches. Mr. Waffle and I went round to her house – where my brother is now living – that evening to watch Ireland play the All Blacks and, honestly, with one thing and another, it would have been nice if the Irish team had won. But no, it was that kind of weekend.

I feel a bit sad but I guess it’s good that she’s interred there with her uncles and aunts, brother and grandparents (her parents are elsewhere). And, as they say, she had a good innnings. In fact, she was pretty much perfect and driving about until her late 80s. She was 94 when she died and living at home. Things could have been a lot worse.

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Perverse


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins

I was talking about Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with the children for reasons which I have now forgotten. Daniel asked, “Is he from ‘The Taming of the Shrew’?” “No,” I said. “Oh yeah,” he said, “‘The Taming of the Shrew’ is not the one with all the animals in it despite having an animal in the title.” Fair point.

Mid Week Break


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Travel

Mr. Waffle and I found a blue book voucher on the bookshelves and decided to go away mid-week. The excitement. If you gave us the blue book voucher, I am really sorry because we have no idea who gave it to us.

We went to Hunter’s Hotel where we last stayed in January 2003 just before we moved to Brussels. The hotel is nice but the food was terrible then. My sister-in-law who I normally find very reliable on these matters said, “But it’s really improved in the intervening 20 years”. I regret to inform you that it has not. Still a lovely setting though and a good spot for afternoon tea or breakfast but definitely not for dinner.

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And we went for a walk in Glendalough. All of the pines on the way up to the Spinc – which is a walk we sometimes do – have been cut down and replaced by native trees. I am sure it will be lovely in 20 years but at the moment the walk up is the abomination of desolation.

You win some you lose some. Still nice views from the monastic site:

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and from the top.

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And I am very excited about the mid-week break as a concept. I suppose this will dissipate when I return to the salt mines in the near future.

I Knew You’d Want to Know


Posted in: Family, Ireland

I cannot tell you how often I have got emails from friends and acquaintances, telling me that someone’s parent is dead saying “I knew you’d want to know.” My heart kind of sinks. I actually didn’t want to know at all and I glumly go about re-ordering my week to attend the funeral or removal, thinking that if I hadn’t known, I could just have sent a card.

One of my most used websites is rip.ie which i basically regard as a public service.

In Ireland, there are a lot of funerals in your life; that’s just how it is. You are honour bound to go to the funeral of someone you know’s parent. Unless you’re abroad. It doesn’t matter where the funeral is, if it is a friend’s parent and the funeral is on the island of Ireland, you schlep there. Sometimes the removal is sufficient. For someone less close if you have to travel more than an hour, you probably don’t have to go but context is all important and at the very least, you must send a card. There’s a whole set of unwritten rules which only fellow Irish people know how to apply and they will know , if you’ve fallen short. By God, they will know. My uncle’s funeral was on the day we were moving back from Belgium to Ireland in 2008. By car with our three small children and all the possessions the movers were not taking for us. I think, quite genuinely, my aunt never forgave me for not coming to my uncle’s funeral. My situation was not helped by my cousin (also a niece) flying home from New York to attend.

I have no idea how many dead bodies I have seen. Loads anyway. Even my kids have seen at least five or six. When I was a child and UCC was much smaller than it is today, my mother would have a look at the flag on the mast on the quad to see whether it was flying at half mast; just in case anyone was dead.

One day over the summer, I spent most of a beautiful day in the car to get to the removal of the parent of someone I worked with years ago. I was filled with rage. But when I got there I met loads of people I knew; the daughter of the dead woman was really pleased to see us all and I think it made a real difference to her at a horrible time. And I remembered all the random children of her friends who took time to come to my aunt’s funeral over the summer and how nice it was for us to have them there.

So, I suppose, yes, they’re all right, I did want to know after all.

Revolutionary Heroes as Crisps


Posted in: Family, Reading etc.

Recently someone painted a junction box with a mash-up tribute to revolutionary hero Michael Collins and the tasty snack known as the chickatee. The artist had written Mickatee on the box over the picture of Collins done in the radioactive yellow associated with the snack. People went bananas (insert your own snack joke here).

My loving family found this very inspiring and came up with a range of crisp/revolution related puns including: “No man can Lay the boundary to a nation” and “We serve neither King nor Kettle“. Sadly I’ve forgotten the rest. Please feel free to share your own revolution/crisp related content in the comments.

Driving Lessons


Posted in: Family, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

We missed the boat with herself and, due to Covid, she went to England without ever learning to drive. I was determined to get the boys sorted. It took a lot more bureaucracy than I expected.

Firstly they needed to get public service cards. As they were under 18 at the the time, I had to go with them to the centre where you get your public service card. I was confused by the queuing system in the centre. I asked another person waiting whether we needed a ticket and she responded in Ukrainian, that she didn’t understand. Well, this was the opportunity I had been waiting for. My lessons, my duolingo and my time spent listening to Ukrainian in the cesspit that is YouTube shorts were about to pay off. I repeated my question in Ukrainian. She looked baffled. Her teenage sons sniggered unhelpfully. My teacher said that part of the difficulty might be in the way I pronounce “ticket”; apparently, it sounds like “flower”. Alas.

Anyway, eventually, we sorted Dan’s card and Michael was the beneficiary of the scoping exercise I had carried out with Dan the previous day. The next day Michael and I were in and out in 10 minutes. One of the officials was the mother of a friend of his from school and while this made no difference to the speediness of the operation, it made us feel very well connected to the corridors of bureaucratic power.

Later, I was appalled to see that the cards ran out on their 18th birthday in September. The idea of going through it all again was very distressing. I am, however, pleased to report that following their birthday, new cards arrived automatically in the post. The relief.

Once they got PS cards they were able to do the driver theory test. If you have just done your Leaving Certificate, prepping for the driver theory test presents precisely zero difficulties. They sailed through it unlike their mother who failed the mock test they made her do online. In my defence, I would say that I answered some questions with what I thought they would like you to do rather than what I would actually do and, it turns out, what I was doing was actually right. Who knew? It was ironic that I shortly afterwards received a notification that my own licence was due to expire. However renewal is, in fairness to the driving licence people, extremely easy, if you have a licence already. Crucially, no resitting of any tests is required. I mean, maybe it should be?

Once they had their theory tests and PS cards, the boys could apply for provisional licences. Daniel, as a glasses wearer, needed a piece of paper from the optician following an eye test. We did it. Then I realised that everyone who wants a driving licence has to do an eye test, not just people who wear glasses. On balance, a good thing but back to the optician with Michael, of course, on the morning of our flight to Argentina. The optician’s credit card machine was broken. Extra trip back. Sigh. Anyhow, Michael’s form in and everything in order. Hurrah.

Then we got a message about Daniel’s form. Due to his eye condition, he needed a medical form as well within ten days or the application would not be progressed, his fee would be forfeit and he would have to start again. I rang the helpdesk, they were helpful. “We’re going on holidays today, we won’t make the 10 day deadline,” I said. “You can go to any GP at all,” said the nice man at the other end of the line. “We’re going to Argentina,” I said. A pause. “Look,” he said, “I will flag it on the application and maybe they will wait but it might be rejected.”

When we returned from Argentina, Michael’s provisional licence was there waiting for him. We went to the GP with Dan as soon as we could get an appointment (she got to look at his injured shoulder as well, so a win as it is €70 for a GP visit and it is nice to get more than a quick once over and a form filled in) and put in the form and, hallelujah, it was accepted and he too got a provisional licence. Though the physio said that he couldn’t actually drive for at least a month so no urgency really then.

Michael had his first actual lesson on the road at the start of September and was genuinely horrified by the power of fourth gear. He has to have a number of lessons with an instructor before he can be put on our insurance and drive with a parent (something that will be possible at the end of the month and, quite frankly, something we’re all dreading).

It’s funny that Michael is the most advanced in his progress towards actually having a driving licence because he has zero interest in it really, it’s just something useful to have. The other two are much keener. The physio has finally cleared Dan to have lessons and I actually think he will quite enjoy it. This will make a pleasant contrast with Michael who heads out to lessons with the demeanour of a condemned man and comes back a shadow of his former self. When these lessons are costing you a fortune, it is hard to take this with equanimity.

A friend of Mr. Waffle’s points out, most unhelpfully, that it is hardly worth their while to learn on a manual gear stick as they will be phased out for all cars by the end of the decade. However, our current car, on which they will be learning to drive, is a manual car so I really don’t think we had a lot of choice. It’s much harder, of course, but it will make them mentally strong, I am sure.

They’ll both be on our car insurance in the next month or so. That’s two 18 year olds. I shudder to contemplate what the cost will be. Good job I’m planning to go back to work. I don’t at all remember learning to drive being so administratively challenging when I learnt. Although, I did nearly send my mother to an early grave with my near misses (favourite expression deployed on my rounding a bend too quickly in the city centre, “What would you have done, if there had been a cow lying in the middle of the road?”). I vividly remember her clutching the door handle and pumping an invisible brake with her foot. At the time, I thought she exaggerated but I did notice that as I became a more experienced driver those behaviours disappeared. I suppose it is all ahead of me.